GPU Availability and Pricing Update: January 2022

[Scorpus]

It's time to assess the current GPU market and see what's going on at the beginning of 2022. Throughout last year, GPU prices were the worst they have ever been, but there is some hope that this year will be better.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/article/2397-gpu-pricing-2022-update/

 

[Dimitriid]

Looks like the 6700 xt remains the sweet spot. Well not sweet: it's still as bitter and distasteful as eating tree bark, but it is sweet compared to paying around the same for a 3060.

And while the 6600 xt remains a "maybe" I would be weary of it and the nonxt and we know the 6500xt can potentially be so crippled for anyone on perfectly fine pci 3.0 systems (Including you know, those that AMD it's still happily selling you with those A520 mobos) so it will be D.O.A.

For the next few months there's really 3 options in my mind

1) Go for an APU only. Yes it can "only" do 1080p low to medium and on the heaviest games it will need to go down to 900p. It's still a 400-500 range system where nothing else can be built for that

2) Go for a 3050 or used 1070. I suspect these will end up priced exactly the same at that 400 bucks mark. The 1070 it's probably more robust overall but it will be less than pristine at this point and will miss on DLSS 2.0

3) Save up to the 800 bucks 6700 xt: I call this the "I have more money than sense" option but hey if you do, try to have *a little* sense and just go for the least bad option.

 

[dangh]

I went with the sapphire 6900xt nitro+ se oc for 1550 eur. As nitro series were always more expensive than the msrp, I believe I paid maybe 200 eur more than would be the price on 'normal' market. Currently it is a price I was fine to pay, as I had to rebuild my whole pc (downsizing).
I wonder if this madness will ever end...

 

[Achaios]

I went with the sapphire 6900xt nitro+ se oc for 1550 eur. As nitro series were always more expensive than the msrp, I believe I paid maybe 200 eur more than would be the price on 'normal' market. Currently it is a price I was fine to pay, as I had to rebuild my whole pc (downsizing).
I wonder if this madness will ever end...

Here's the reason why GPU pricing will never, ever return to normal.

That's b/c there are a lot of ppl like "dangh" who happily pay vicinity of 2000 euros for a GPU and think they got a bargain too.

 

[Nintenboy01]

New low-end releases are quite terrible even at MSRP. Not nearly the same level of value the GTX 1060, RX 480/580 and 470/570 gave you almost 6 or 5 years ago.

 

[Nintenboy01]

Here's the reason why GPU pricing will never, ever return to normal.

That's b/c there are a lot of ppl like "dangh" who happily pay vicinity of 2000 euros for a GPU and think they got a bargain too.

yeah, a high end GPU costs more than a decent mid-range to high end laptop nowadays which really shouldn't be the case.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

If NVIDIA only made the 3050Ti, 3060, 3070, 3080 and 3090, they would still dominate the market absolutely.

The 3080Ti and 3090Ti are just NVIDIA flexing all over AMD and keeping their name high on Wall Street.

Unfortunately, since the 2000 series, scalpers have GPU on their radar, whether you're mining or not. They will never let those cards simply "sell" when they can become high-profit middle men.

What we need is Nvidia and AMD to sell direct to consumers through pre-orders. Apple managed to almost eliminate scalping of iPhones back during iPhone 7 using that method.

People are paying more money for their 3080 and 3080Ti than I paid for my 3090 cards.

 

[dangh]

Here's the reason why GPU pricing will never, ever return to normal.

That's b/c there are a lot of ppl like "dangh" who happily pay vicinity of 2000 euros for a GPU and think they got a bargain too.

haha, nice strawman here man, it is no bargain and I never said that, it is 200 extra eur which I'm fine to spend as part of general system upgrade. Next one in 5 years and I don't believe prices for a top gpu will be any lower at that point. do you?

 

[godrilla]

Unfortunately the nightmare continues. Also prebuilt systems while not ideal like Alienware are still your best bet to get a close to MSRP pricing as possible. eg.
$3,229.99
Price Match Guarantee
processor
11th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 11700KF (8-Core, 16MB Cache, 3.6GHz to 5GHz w/Intel® Turbo Boost Max)

laptop
Windows 11 Home, English
(FREE Upgrade to Windows 11*)

videocard
NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3080 Ti 12GB GDDR6X

memory
32GB, 2x16GB, DDR4, 3466MHz, XMP

harddrive
1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD (Boot) + 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s (Storage)

color
Lunar Light

fyi

 

[BlackSwan]

Here's the reason why GPU pricing will never, ever return to normal.

That's b/c there are a lot of ppl like "dangh" who happily pay vicinity of 2000 euros for a GPU and think they got a bargain too.

It's like military jets, by the time it's built it's out of date but if you didn't build it you wouldn't have any capability. Sometimes you need to buy a GPU however sellers now know they can get away with charging higher and still make sales. Sorry, but like dangh I also bought an overpriced gpu last year.

 

[BlackSwan]

Everyone knows selling stuff on ebay in January is a dead loss. No one's got money after xmas. People usually get paid earlier in December and have higher outgoings so there is a big gap to the next pay check (cheque).
This dip in January will be seen across most things (apart from diet and exercise stuff thanks to new year resolutions). It's not a sign of things heading back to normal. This is the new normal, scalpers will see to that.

 

[Fastturtle]

Looks like the 6700 xt remains the sweet spot. Well not sweet: it's still as bitter and distasteful as eating tree bark, but it is sweet compared to paying around the same for a 3060.

And while the 6600 xt remains a "maybe" I would be weary of it and the nonxt and we know the 6500xt can potentially be so crippled for anyone on perfectly fine pci 3.0 systems (Including you know, those that AMD it's still happily selling you with those A520 mobos) so it will be D.O.A.

For the next few months there's really 3 options in my mind

1) Go for an APU only. Yes it can "only" do 1080p low to medium and on the heaviest games it will need to go down to 900p. It's still a 400-500 range system where nothing else can be built for that

2) Go for a 3050 or used 1070. I suspect these will end up priced exactly the same at that 400 bucks mark. The 1070 it's probably more robust overall but it will be less than pristine at this point and will miss on DLSS 2.0

3) Save up to the 800 bucks 6700 xt: I call this the "I have more money than sense" option but hey if you do, try to have *a little* sense and just go for the least bad option.

If you're willing and able to afford $700+ USD for a used 1070, I'd definately check Newegg and get a new one for not much more and you'll likely get the card. It simply isn't worth the risk right now for a used GPU as there are too many scammers who'll take your money and run

 

[JCX88]

I want to add from a personal rig mining experience. So in summer electricity rates in my area were around 20 cents/kWh and my 2060 was mining at a rate of about $60-70/month.

So if electricity costs were around $25/month mining made a lot of sense even in my area.

But right now electricity rates went up so that my rig will consume around $30/month when mining and mining only makes $38/month now. I turned it off yesterday since I figured it no longer make sense to mine with just $5-10/month revenue.

Now of course most places have electricity much cheaper than mine 25cents/kWh so it'll take a bit more time, but it appears that we are rapidly approaching avalanche of price falls for GPU's.

 

[godrilla]

Look what I found via CNBC now.
Russia proposes ban on use and mining of cryptocurrencies.
$1 million dollar bitcoin anyone? People believe in these outrageous marketing claims. I hope they don't lose it all by going all in and at least diversify.

 

[StrikerRocket]

Keep going Nvidia, you may just end up pushing your "luck" just a tad too much... Well, to be honest, that's already the case with me, and it looks like it's the same for quite a huge number of people who are waiting for a reasonably priced GPU.
The best thing to witness, as mentioned in the article, is to see new cards gathering dust on retailers shelves! I have been waiting for a new GPU for more than a year now, I bought a used 1080 in May 2020 for a good price, just before all hell broke loose, and I'm lucky I did that!
Instead of upgrading my GPU, I upgraded my monitor with a MSI MAG274QRF-QD, on which the great majority of games reach 100+ FPS with my 1080! That's a better way to improve FPS count than an overpriced GPU.
Know what? I'll stick to my 1080 for as long as it'll take for prices to go down to "normal" prices, even if I am lucky to be wealthy enough to buy several 3080 right now! Too much is too much Nvidia/AMD!

 

[ddferrari]

My EVGA 1080Ti Hybrid OC is still hanging in there, but I hesitate to even play Cyberpunk 2077 or Red Dead at 3440x1440.

Sadly, if I could snag a 3080 for ~$1200 eventually (and sell my 1080Ti for ~$500) I'll probably go for it. What's the alternative- quit gaming? Not gonna happen.

I don't foresee moving beyond this resolution for several years. Just want closer to the 120fps my monitor delivers. I'd flog the 3080 for 3-4 years, just as I did with the 1080Ti. It's POSSIBLE!

So conflicted...

 

[StrikerRocket]

My EVGA 1080Ti Hybrid OC is still hanging in there, but I hesitate to even play Cyberpunk 2077 or Red Dead at 3440x1440.

Sadly, if I could snag a 3080 for ~$1200 eventually (and sell my 1080Ti for ~$500) I'll probably go for it. What's the alternative- quit gaming? Not gonna happen.

I don't foresee moving beyond this resolution for several years. Just want closer to the 120fps my monitor delivers. I'd flog the 3080 for 3-4 years, just as I did with the 1080Ti. It's POSSIBLE!

So conflicted...

For me, absolutely not relevant to play at 4K resolution, the gain from 1440p is minimal at best and the cost to reach acceptable FPS at 4K is just not worth the trouble/money/electricity consumption. 1440p is the best resolution for gamers IMHO. Plenty of details on a 27" monitor, plenty of FPS and good quality IPS panels that reach insane framerates, or VA now with Samsung screens. What's all the hype around 4K, if it's not to sell more screens and graphic cards? My 1080p works great on my MSI MAG274QRF-QD 1440p, I reach 100 FPS+ on the vast majority of games, except Cyberpunk and the likes of course. The sweet spot for a 1440p is a 3070 Ti or at most a 3080. No good screens that reach 165 FPS at 4K for the time being, or at least at acceptable prices. The MSI accepts 4K downscaling, so it's an ok compromise for a PS5, or buy an OLED 48" LG TV...
Upgrading the monitor is, for now, the best solution, as it allows to take advantage of the performances of your GC instead of clamping to 60 FPS. With a high refresh rate screen: instant upgrade to 100+ FPS at a fraction of the cost of a GPU!

 

[ddferrari]

For me, absolutely not relevant to play at 4K resolution, the gain from 1440p is minimal at best and the cost to reach acceptable FPS at 4K is just not worth the trouble/money/electricity consumption. 1440p is the best resolution for gamers IMHO. Plenty of details on a 27" monitor, plenty of FPS and good quality IPS panels that reach insane framerates, or VA now with Samsung screens. What's all the hype around 4K, if it's not to sell more screens and graphic cards? My 1080p works great on my MSI MAG274QRF-QD 1440p, I reach 100 FPS+ on the vast majority of games, except Cyberpunk and the likes of course. The sweet spot for a 1440p is a 3070 Ti or at most a 3080. No good screens that reach 165 FPS at 4K for the time being, or at least at acceptable prices. The MSI accepts 4K downscaling, so it's an ok compromise for a PS5, or buy an OLED 48" LG TV...
Upgrading the monitor is, for now, the best solution, as it allows to take advantage of the performances of your GC instead of clamping to 60 FPS. With a high refresh rate screen: instant upgrade to 100+ FPS at a fraction of the cost of a GPU!

I completely agree- that's why I'm sticking with my 3440x1440p, 120Hz IPS monitor for a long time.

The "problem" is that 3440x1440p has nearly 1.27 million more pixels to push (about 35%) than a 16:9 2560x1440, so that adds to the struggling framerates. I topped out at around 70fps in HZD at a mix of medium and high settings, but I think that game is poorly optimized. I should fire up CP2077 to see where I'm really at.

I'm certainly not desperate, but the 3080 is nearly twice as fast as the 1080Ti and I would be happy with that for a long time. Let's just say I'm keeping my eyes peeled. The 4xxx series will be out later this year, but of course I won't be able to buy one (or pay 3x retail). I'm hoping that at least the 3080 will come back to Earth after the Lovelace launch.